Assisted-suicide Law Survives A Court Test

Panel Orders Dismissal Of Lawsuit

LOS ANGELES — Federal appeals court judges in San Francisco on Thursday ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging an Oregon law that would allow doctors to help terminally ill patients take their own lives.

Oregon voters approved the Death With Dignity Act, the nation's first assisted-suicide law, in November 1994. Almost immediately a group of right-to-life advocates persuaded a federal district court judge to declare the measure unconstitutional and block it from going into effect.

But on Thursday a panel of appellate judges ordered the district court judge to dismiss the case because the plaintiffs didn't sufficiently demonstrate that they would be harmed by the assisted-suicide law.

"Tell the world I'm very happy," said Tim Shuck, 48, an AIDS patient who helped put the measure on the ballot. "All along I've always wanted the right to have that choice."

Opponents vowed to keep the law on hold while appealing the 3-0 ruling to the full 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals--and to the Supreme Court, if necessary.

Nevertheless, the ruling does not settle the thorny question of assisted suicide, which also is being debated in Washington and New York states as well as the Supreme Court. Nor does it mean that it will ever become a legal practice in Oregon.

District Court Judge Michael Hogan must review his earlier decision, but there is no deadline for his ruling.

Moreover, opponents of the Oregon law have shifted their battleground from the courtroom to the state legislature. Seven bills have been introduced to either revise or repeal the law. Similar measures have been drafted in six other states, according to the Hemlock Society USA.

"Obviously, our fears have been justified," said state Rep. John Minnis, a Republican who heads the Oregon House's Judiciary Committee, which is reviewing several bills against assisted suicide. "The ruling brings us a step closer to implementing assisted suicide. It increases the need for us to look at this issue in the legislature," he added.

The Death With Dignity Act would allow physicians to prescribe lethal doses of medication for patients with six months or less to live who want to commit suicide. It also would allow friends and family members of the patients to be present without fear of prosecution.

Supporters of the measure argue it is a humane way for terminally ill patients to end their pain and suffering. They designed safeguards into the measure, including ones that would require patients to make several written and oral requests for the medication and that would prohibit doctors from providing the drugs to patients suffering depression or from mental problems.

Opponents, including the National Right to Life Committee and numerous doctors and terminal patients, argued in their suit that the measure is unconstitutional.

Judge Hogan concurred, saying the law violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution by treating terminally ill patients differently from other citizens. He also agreed with the plaintiffs that mentally disabled patients might be forced to commit suicide against their will.

But in calling for the dismissal, the appeals court judges said the argument does not apply to the only terminally ill person remaining as a plaintiff, a woman suffering from muscular dystrophy.

The appellate panel said that the case as argued in the suit does not cover the woman because she is not mentally incompetent.

All of the other terminally ill patients who were involved in the original suit have died.

The ruling "was based on a technicality," said Burke Balch, director of the Right to Life Committee's department of medical ethics.